The_Times__6_March_2020

the times | Friday March 6 2020 1GM 15

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Broadcasting

mouse departs

They are a morbid bunch at the

World Service. When a dead mouse

was found recently on the floor of

the office in Broadcasting House, it

did not cause panic. This was no

vermin but a colleague, and one

who had departed without a

redundancy package. Someone

kindly put a stepladder over the

ex-squeaker to stop people treading

on it and attached a sign that read

“Chapel of Rest for Mice”. As the

day progressed, others added a

rather optimistic “get well soon”

card, a wreath, cross and a couple

of pot plants either side of the

corpse. The mouse was finally

moved overnight by facilities before

it could be given its own series.

Arriva Rail North is also no more,

replaced this week by Northern

Trains, whose chairman wrote to

MPs to introduce himself. “We will

push hard on the pace of change,” he

said. Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for

Leeds West, noting with disapproval

the address on the letterhead, says it

would be a start if Northern Trains

could push off to somewhere farther

north than five minutes’ walk from

her Westminster office.

washington trumps trump

At the launch of Gimson’s

Presidents, a fun collection of mini

biographies of American leaders,

Andrew Gimson recounted one of

Donald Trump’s famous moments

of self-effacement. As he showed

Emmanuel Macron round Mount

Vernon, George Washington’s

home, Trump remarked that if the

first president had been “smart” he

would have put his name on the

building as Trump does. I suppose

Washington just had to make do

with the consolation of giving his

name to the nation’s capital.

bored to death

Many authors like to gush about

inspirational books they read as

children. Not Joanna Trollope. The

romantic novelist, above, tells Paul

McKenna’s podcast that she turned

to writing because of a lack of good

books to read at home. “I remember

thinking Lorna Doone was very,

very boring,” she says. “I just knew

that somebody was going to drown

and I wanted them to get on with it.

I had exactly the same feeling

watching Titanic.” Can’t believe she

said that without a spoiler warning.

Yesterday was World Book Day,

when children go to school dressed

as a favourite literary creation. My

daughter went as Amy March from

Little Women, ignoring my idea that

she go as Theresa May from, well, my

own book. The Labour MP Jess

Phillips says her son went to school

in his pyjamas, arguing that as she

has featured him in both her books

he fancied going dressed as himself.

comfort in culture

One has to admire the cultural way

in which the French respond to a

crisis. After the Charlie Hebdo terror

attacks in early 2015, Voltaire’s 18th-

century Treatise on Tolerance topped

the French bestseller charts. Ten

months later, when Paris was

attacked again, the bestseller was A

Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway’s

paean to the city. Last year, Victor

Hugo went to No 1 after the fire at

Notre Dame. Now, as coronavirus

sweeps the land, the French again

seek solace in a classic: No 4 in the

bestseller list yesterday was Albert

Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague.

patrick kidd

Somewhere far away hurtling through

space is a giant ball thought to be made

from enough metal to make everyone

on Earth a billionaire.

It may seem fitting then that the man

chosen to help humanity reach it is

Elon Musk. Nasa has named Space X,

the billionaire’s space exploration firm,

to help it to explore the asteroid called

16 Psyche.

American scientists have said that

the body, probably once the core of a

planet, contains iron worth £8,

quadrillion. A quadrillion is one fol-

lowed by 15 zeros. Shared among the

world’s nearly eight billion people, this

would amount to about £1 billion each.

There is no plan to bring it back, but

researchers’ interest in it stems from its

similarities to other planets.

Scientists believe that the aster-

oid, which is about 324 mil-

lion miles away and has a

diameter of about 140

miles, is the molten

core of a dead planet.

It is believed to have

been stripped of its

rocky mantle by col-

lisions billions of

years ago. Its core has

Iron asteroid that can

make us all billionaires

Tom Knowles

Technology Correspondent

since slowly cooled into a solid mass of

iron and nickel.

Pysche, which is shaped like a potato

and sits between Mars and Jupiter, is

not like other asteroids, which are

rocky or icy bodies, and could give us an

extraordinary insight into how planets

are formed. Deep within Earth there is

likely to be a similar metallic core, but it

is unattainable below the rocky mantle

and crust. Looking at Psyche is likely to

provide a window into the distant past

of the solar system.

The Nasa probe will not be landing

on the asteroid but will orbit around it

for 21 months, exploring different ages

on its surface and determining whether

Psyche is the core of a planet-size ob-

ject. What SpaceX will do is push the

unmanned robotic spaceship into space

with the help of Falcon Heavy, the

world’s largest operational rocket since

the Saturn V that took men to the

moon. When Falcon Heavy lifts off

in Florida in July 2022, its side

boosters will separate from

the main body, rotate and

start the return to Earth

to be reused. The Nasa

spaceship is expected

to reach Psyche in

2026. The payload will
      also include equip-
      ment for two other Na-
      sa missions. One will
      examine the Martian at-
      mosphere and the other
      will study binary asteroids.

16 Psyche is about

324 million miles away,

or four years by space ship

4 mil-

as a

0

in Florida

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